Disclaimer: I own none of the Inuyasha characters. They
belong to their respected (and overly rich) creators and owners.
If I owned them then I'd make a movie instead of a fanfic.
Chapter 14: Fall of Spider and Hound
Kohaku suddenly fell to the ground, pain filling his veins.
Damn, it felt like a thunderstorm was tearing through his
insides. Tearing him from the inside out. This was even worse
than Zack's transformations. Then again, no memories gained from
another can hold this much pain. Only one thought kept him from
losing his mind, to KILL Naraku.
His arms felt like they were snapping and
rearanging inside of him, the agony sharp and burning. His legs:
growing, itching, just asking to be scratched until they bled.
Muscles expanded faster than his mass for a moment, making him
feel like a bulky monster. In mere moments, however, it ended.
He looked at his body in surprise. Shouldn't
he be out of control by now? His face felt human-like...if you
ignored the hair. The rest of him was werewolf down to the
letter. Was it because he didn't try to fight the change?
He heard a yell of frustration, his now demon
ears picking up Naraku's voice. It sounded frustrated. "DAMNIT!!
That FOOL!! He FAILED to MENTION DEMON BLOOD doesn't work well
with the CHANGE!!"
Something dawned on Kohaku. The shard in his
back! Taking a nail, he scratched at it, and tore it out. Pain
filled his body again. In the corner of his eye he saw two
strangers and...Rin? Oh shit. Now he fought the change, to no
avail. His mind losing all humanity, and the snout now growing
painfully.
Screaming in agony, he soon found primal urges
conflicting with his conscious mind. His head felt like it would
split open any second.
When it was done, only one thought was in his
head -- hunger. He sniffed the air. He sensed a half-demon, a
wind demon, a human, and another werewolf in the area.
He growled. This was his hunting ground. The
two with demon blood would be torn apart. Then he would take the
soft, sweet flesh of the human girl for his own. If the other
werewolf fought for it, then only one would remain alive to have
girl flesh.
He then leaped towards a door, and ripped it
open. The half-demon was with the other werewolf. Good, two
problems at once.
Sesshomaru had only one thing in mind: pain.
According to Jaken, these fools knew who Rin was. Knew what to
do to get his attention. And they would soon find that getting a
Taiyoukai's attention was fatal.
Sesshomaru heard a click sound, and stopped.
The ground he would have been in if he had kept going burst into
flames. The demon lord raised an eyebrow. Kitsune magic, fire
type. Perhaps a two tail at best. But where was it?
"Ah, so you're Sesshomaru-sama? I figured
you'd come through here."
The voice sounded female, but came from all
directions...okay, a five tail.
"Who are you?" Sesshomaru asked.
"Just call me Ghost."
The demon lord glared, "Are you with the
two-tail that took Rin?"
"Yes."
He lifted his hand and green energy surrounded
it. "Then die."
He then spun around, a greenish whip coming
from his hand, ripping apart dozens of trees. One of them bled.
He leaped at it, and grabbed hold of a female kitsune hanyou.
She smiled. "Time to go, Sesshomaru-sama."
The last thing Sesshomaru saw before blacking
out was a green little ball, and a fire coming out of it.
It took three hours for Sesshomaru to wake up,
and his body was in extreme pain. This was not a normal
occurence for him.
The kitsune hanyou said, "I implanted lead in
your system. It has a unique effect on demon blood on contact,
you see. Much like an acid. While I have you down there..."
She then took a tube like thing and pulled a
trigger. Lead pellets ripped through him, covering the wall
behind him in blood.
"That won't kill you. It's only meant to give
you agonizing pain and weaken you so you can't use your more
colorful powers, so you can't fight back in the next world where
I will send you to die -- permanently."
She then put her hands together and said,
"Avarten, goshe mache."
The world around Sesshomaru seemed to turn to
stars, and electricity surounded the now helpless 'demon lord'.
When Sesshomaru woke up, he saw blood all over
his body. He examined his wounds. Damn. Those small metal
pellets were stinging him far too much. With his hand, he slowly
removed one pellet after the other. Lead? What was lead?
The Taiyoukai looked around, wondering where
he was. This wasn't the same place he had been when he was about
to get to Rin.
But he did hear a familiar sound. Hmm, sounded
like that same kind of pellet-shooting weapon, lots of them, and
screaming humans. The humans were none of his affair, but... he
had to destroy those weapons.
He tried to leap towards the sound, but fell
flat just a foot ahead of where he had been. Damn, that was
right. The lead. That kitsune had implanted lead his body
somehow, more than just those pellets. It was in his
blood. He'd have to wait for his body to heal itself,
expel the substance, pissing it away. Yes, he would
recover. He had to recover. He was a demon
lord. But that might take as long as a week. And for
now, that lead made him as weak as any human.
He then thought to do something he never would
in any other time. Run. Now was no time to battle.
He took off in a sprint in the opposite
direction, slightly disappointed at how slow he was going.
Normally, he could outorun anything. Now a three-legged
horse could go faster than him, much less an upstart demon.
A loud whirring noise reached his ears, and
soon he saw a floating metal steed with a human rider.
Sesshomaru had no idea what that was, but when it started
shooting at him from its nozzle, he knew what to do. He changed
directions and dove, barely getting out of the path of the
machine. And still twelve lead pellets entered his body.
He pulled them out quickly, and ran deeper
into the forest. He stopped when he saw a burning village.
Great, now humans from there might try to kill him, too; and he
was so weak they might succeed.
The machine came back quickly, and stabbed
him, pinning him to a tree.
Sesshomaru muttered, "I won't die here."
The human on the metal steed chuckled, "Too
bad. You will," and pulled out another of those gadgets that
shot lead pellets and aimed it at Sesshomaru's head. A loud
crack sounded. That was the last thing he ever heard. And his
very last thought was, "Rin."
Project Ghost held the remains of Sesshomaru's
swords. If he wasn't dead from lead poisoning, the war in Wutai
would kill him. Looking outward, she wondered if Naraku was dead
yet, that's when the fun would really start.
She walked up to Adam and said, "The wolf clan
in the area...let's see how well they handle one such as you."
Adam asked, "Shall I chase after the ones that
survived the orcs?"
Ghost looked sadistic. "No, they'll die soon
enough. If it's from me, or a lucky orc, or even one of the
genma, they all will die."
Adam's human eye widened, "Genma? What
are...genma? My systems hold no information of such beings."
"Because we just unleashed them. You wouldn't
have been told. Now, deal with the wolves, and let me deal with
the survivors as I see fit."
"Interesting. The wolves will be slaughtered
immediately." The patchwork monster walked off, didn't notice
Ghost staring at him with a dark smile. His usefulness, along
with her own, was coming to a close. But, unlike him, she
wouldn't die in a true sense...not like Sesshomaru or Naraku.
Feeling the need to speak to herself, she
said, "The spider and hound have died. Soon enough, the time we
cause chaos and destruction in this world will arrive. Rachel's
prime directive will make them all die. All but the hanyou. All
but Inuyasha. We will use his genes to create the ultimate
army...and conquer all other worlds with his power."
Kyone walked through the blue portal and
looked around. Well, it LOOKED like she, Miroku, and Shippo were
back in the TIME they'd been in. But not the place. It looked
like a ruined castle in ancient Japan, claw marks all over the
place.
Rachel walked to one of the claw marks and
commented, "Huh. Werewolves. Didn't think those were Japanese."
"They aren't." A ragged woman in a ruined
kimono stepped out of the shadows. Her face was covered in mud
and blood. Kyone couldn't tell if the blood was her own, .
Rachel asked, "Then why are two werewolves
fighting a half-demon here?"
Huh? Kyone looked up, and saw wolf shapes
moving towards them at a fast pace. She said, "Um, maybe we
should run."
Shippo nodded, but Miroku shook his head.
"That half-demon is Naraku, the man who cursed my bloodline. I'm
not leaving until I see him die."
Kyone shrugged, and moved towards a down
staircase. An arrow flew through the loose hair near her left
ear. She jumped in shock, and suddenly noticed, standing in the
corner, a woman dressed in the miko clothing of a Japanese
priestess. The priestess asked, "Who are you? What do you know
of werewolves? And why is it I couldn't tell Zack was one?"
Kyone's eyes widened,. "You know Zack? HE'S
ONE OF THOSE TWO BEASTS?! DAMN, WE GOTTA SAVE HIM!!"
Rachel raised an eyebrow. "Save him? Anyone
who changes like that loses all sense of his human self, while
his wolf self takes over. The best thing you can do for your
friend is either stay out of his way, and hope he survives until
morning, when he will be like he was before."
The priestess aimed an arrow at Rachel. "I
will not allow that. Naraku is the only half-demon that dies
tonight. Now, tell me: what is a werewolf?"
Rachel sighed, "A werewolf is a human who
turns entirely into a demon wolf on the night of a full moon,
then returns to human shape at dawn. He's a cursed human, not a
demon. Or to be exact, he's 57/60ths human and 3/60ths demon
wolf; because he turns to a wolf three nights a month, the
nights of the full moon."
Kikyo (the priestess in miko clothing) stopped
listening when Rachel began explaining the math. Instead,
she focused on Naraku, who was still fighting the two werewolves
in the distance. A complicated shot, but...
She looked right through him, seeing the
Shikon no Tama that he had swallowed, and aimed at that and
struck it directly with her arrow, deep inside his stomach.
For a moment, the air turned black around the
arrow. Then rainbow color combinations started to fly out of the
jewel. The werewolves and Naraku were enngulfed in the light.
She hadn't expected such a result. She had
thought only Naraku would be effected.
She ran towards the growing ball of light,
toward the two wolves, one of whom (which?) was Zack. She wanted
to save him, but still, her first priority had be be
Naraku -- making sure he was dead.
The light faded. Two figures were standing --
a wounded Naraku, and a young boy (had he been one of the
wolves?). Where was Zack?
The naked boy caught her attention. A
pre-teen. He had old battle scars all over his chest and legs,
everywhere but his face. What kind of kid would have been in
that many fights by his age? What kind of kid would have
survived. She looked him up and down, blushing. He had more
muscles than most teenagers, but they seemed to fit him well,
despite his small frame.
Then the action started again, waking Kikyo
from her brief trance. The boy jumped and kicked out at Naraku
with both feet, landing his blows like a karate black belt.
Oh shit, if she didn't hurry, the kid would
kill him. And she needed to be the one who killed Naraku,
or she would be cursed for eternity!
But then she saw Zack's prone body. Blood was
covering it, bones sticking out in weird angles.
"Oh god," she thought, "he could have become
one of my ONLY true freinds, and I killed him."
She near fell down in grief, but the boy
yelled, "FINISH HIM KIKYO!!"
Finally, she aimed and fired. To her it seemed
the arrow moved in slow motion, taking hours before it struck
Naraku in the heart.
She had done it. The curse was ended. But why
didn't she feel ecstatic? Why didn't the change impact her
physically, immediately? Oh, yeah, Zack was dead...
Now that same scene from the perspective of
the young boy.
Kohaku (the young boy) was surounded by
multi-colored light, as he slowly became conscious again. He was
sore all over, but couldn't see any new wounds. Wait. Shouldn't
his body feel too large for for his skin, now that he had gone
from wolf back to human in an instant? He felt like he did on an
ordinary day; as if he had never gone through the change.
He suddenly realized that the arrow it had
purified the jewel, and the jewel had purified everything near
it. That would mean that...Naraku was...
As the light died down, he saw two things that
shocked him. One, Naraku was bleeding. And the second was that
his blood was pure red. Naraku WAS human now. Naraku was a full
blooded HUMAN now.
Kohaku looked toward Kikyo, and saw her nod at
him with a blush. He smiled, she would get the finishing blow
for sure. But first, he'd have a little fun with his old
'master'. Oh, this would be fun.
The young demon slayer cracked his knuckles.
Maybe he should do some moves he remembered from Zack. Moves
from the WWE. The mere thought of it made his blood pump faster.
Naraku seemed disoriented. "Wha...what's going
on here? What just happened to me?"
Kohaku laughed darkly, "The beginning of your
end, you half-demon has-been."
He then ran at Naraku jumped, legs in front.
He drop-kicked him so high, his feet landed on Naraku's chest,
stunning and staggering him. Before Naraku could recover, Kohaku
grabbed his arms with his legs, and squeezed. The bones cracked
and shattered, making Naraku scream in pain.
Kohaku looked down with a laugh. "You scream
like a little girl."
He stood and pulled the much taller Naraku
painfully to his feet, then and kicked him in the gut. As Naraku
doubled over, Kohaku ducked under him, and lifted him with his
back. Kohaku then yelled, "FINISH HIM, KIKYO! HE'S YOURS!"
She quickly pulled out an arrow and aimed. As
the metal point pierced Naraku's dark heart, Kohaku dropped him
to the ground, and grabbed the shaft of the arrow and shoved it
completely through him, pinning his corpse to the ground.
He then looked up and noticed Zack's bloodied,
lifeless body, a few feet away. "Thanks," he whispered,
respectfully.
Then in the distance beyond he spotted
Sango. "SISTER!" he yelled, running toward her, shocked at
the sudden surge of his emotions from grief to delight.
